


The Parting Glass

by xagentofchaos



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Glaryl, M/M, Pranking, Prison, alternative universe, darlenn, mentions of drug use, prank games, prison fic, the walking dead - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-01
Updated: 2015-04-01
Packaged: 2018-03-20 19:25:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3662097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xagentofchaos/pseuds/xagentofchaos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A pranking war begins when Glenn meets Daryl in prison</p><p>THIS FIC WILL NOT BE UPDATED</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Parting Glass

**Author's Note:**

> So there's one good and a bad thing about starting a new fanfiction,  
> the good thing is that I have a short spring break right now so I might be able to write on both this one and the sterek/steter fanfiction I'm writing, 
> 
> The bad thing is that I have a lot of ideas in my head for other fics and I will never be able to get rid of them if I don't write them down. But I'll try my hardest to focus on this one and 'The Wilderness' ONLY. 
> 
> As I've written before, english is not my native language so there will most definitely be grammar mistakes, or just words that doesn't mean what I think they mean.

Merle

No sun beaming light is hitting his eyes that morning, only dusty particles are swirling into his skin; burying itself deeper and deeper. He parts his eyelids slowly; brushes the sleep out of the corners and sits up. 

The bed is making unpleasant noises, creaking its protests against his weight. Moaning ghost-like sounds, objecting his right to wake up. Whatever right he has left. 

He’s been in this exact room before on this exact bed. They should be best of buddies by now. But the beds hate the inmates, just like everybody else. 

He’s leaning against the bare wall, legs clamped to his chest and arms around them in a brief hug. His gaze is staring upon the surroundings. No windows. Only four, pale architectural partitions, a toilet and flickering light above his head. The guards never shut the light off so it could be night by now. He wouldn’t know. 

Neither does he know what day it is.

Monday?

Thursday?

The day of extra recognition of God?

In here he can only count the last remains of seconds passing by. How many of those that’s passed, he doesn’t know either.

Has it been two weeks? Two months?

A year?

He lets his eyes close again, not to sleep but to think. To go insane. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One week later  
New inmates

Glenn 

He’s almost tripping while trying to keep up with the other inmates’ pace. On both sides of them, he hears elder men whistling dirty stuff into his ear, inviting him to their cells at night. A slight taste of disgust and fear is creeping up his throat while shaking his head in a neglecting move. 

The group suddenly stops as two are being pushed inside their bunks. They’re given some toilet paper, a toothbrush and other useful tools for your care. 

One by one, sometimes more are disappearing through metallic doors and soon enough, there’s only him left. 

“You’ll be in here,” a female guard tells him. She hands him his equipment’s and opens the door. He reads ‘Lori Grimes’ on her outfit before thanking her quietly and steps inside. 

The immediate response he gets is an older guy barking at him with threat in his voice:

“Who the hell are you?”

Glenn falters and almost drops his things on the dirty floor, as the man walks up to him. He’s standing dangerously close to Glenn’s face; giving him the deadliest eyes a man can give. 

“G-Glenn,” he stutters and swallows loudly. The older man’s face hardens. 

“Ain’t givin’ a rats ass of your name, this just ain’t your room. We’re full so get out.” 

Glenn dares to glance behind the furious guy with clearly bigger arms and an experienced mind with jackasses. The bed on top to the left is neatly made up, just waiting for his spindly body to devour it. 

“The guard said I’d be here,” Glenn tries, wanting no trouble but also not feeling intrigued of sleeping on the ground. 

“I ain’t sharing no bed with a Chinaman, we’re full.” 

A pang of hot anger shots through Glenn’s body and suddenly he isn’t careful anymore. 

“I’m Korean,” he hisses to the redneck’s face, already tired of the racist slurs that are to come. 

“Whatever,” the redneck mutters, squinting his eyes. “Get out and find your own room.” He’s speaking slowly, as if Glenn doesn’t understand English. The next thing he’ll do is probably starting to use sign language, if sign language means making Glenn’s nose bleed with his fist. 

“No one’s sleeping up there but me.” Glenn pushes himself forward into the room, hitting the redneck’s bare shoulder with his own; ignoring the subtle pain in it as the other guy didn’t move a single inch to the side. 

“The hell you think you doin’-“more isn’t coming out of his mouth but a huff of being forcefully pushed to the wall. 

“Behave yourself now, Dixon, or I’ll send your filthy ass to solitary where you’ll be eating cockroaches for the rest of your life. Or your own shit, since you must be pretty used to insects already.” A tall and heavy built man guard, with flexing muscles underneath his outfit is holding the redneck’s neck in a tight grip. A swell of thick, black hair, upon his head is giving his jaw a softer structure but otherwise, he looks like the kind of guard you don’t want to mess with. “What the hell’s going on?” 

No one’s speaking as the guard, Glenn’s reading Shane Walsh on his batch, is boring his intense eyes into every single one of them. Until he stops on Glenn and gives his bright orange outfit a strange expression. Perhaps a little admiration as well? 

Glenn is suspecting the redneck (or Dixon apparently) to say something like ‘Chinaman tryna steal the bed’ but he remains silent, looking at his shoes; still with the guard’s hand around the back of his neck. 

“Well?” Walsh is looking directly at Glenn. 

Before Glenn stammers he receives a look from Dixon that says ‘say a beep and I’ll kill you’ but something makes him speak anyway. It’s the intense gaze from Walsh that is stripping him naked to his core, exposing every little detail on his skin. 

“I wasn’t allowed to sleep in the bed according to him, saying its full but-“

“That’ll be three more months for you, Dixon,” Walsh says, wearing a smug grin on his sharp face. 

“You can’t do that,” Dixon protests angrily and frees himself from Walsh’s grip. 

“I’ll have a word with Edwin Jenner,” Walsh snarls but he’s still grinning, clearly enjoying making the redneck red in his face. “Your brother’s in SHU,” Walsh continues, getting to the issue. “and until then, this Chinese kid will take his bed.” With that said, he walks out. Glenn doesn’t even bother to correct him of his ethnicity mistake, realizing he has bigger issues; according to his new cellmates’ faces. 

Both of them, the old man and the black guy are shaking their heads and give him apologetic expressions. 

But Glenn just sighs. Whatever. He has almost all of the time in the world to be afraid. 

“Well,” he says, trying to clear the air a little. It doesn’t work, it’s still hard to breathe in the room and you could crack a band saw, trying to cut through. “I’m Glenn Rhee and my ethnicity is Korean.” He’s almost expecting them to monotony greet him by saying ‘Hi Glenn Rhee’ as they do at AA-meetings, but everyone’s quiet. “Nice to meet you all.”

With small movements; sneaking pass the angry bull, he puts his equipment’s on the top bed. He doesn’t want to do something hastily, figuring the redneck’s still angry with the sudden change in his life. 

So Glenn turns to him and tries to be kind, even if he doesn’t have to. The man wasn’t exactly nice back. 

“I’m sorry about your brother.”

“Go to hell,” Dixon shots back and storms out of the cell. 

After a moment of silence, with Glenn gaping at the spot where Dixon stood, he shakes off the irritation and turns to the other two.

“I’m T-Dog,” the black guy greets with a slight smirk. 

“Dale Horvath,” the elder is just smiling weakly at Glenn. “And the guy you unfortunately pissed off is Daryl. Daryl Dixon.”

Glenn is too tired in his new environment to reflect over Horvath’s choice of words. ‘Unfortunately’ doesn’t taste good in his mouth buy honestly; all he wants to do now is rest. 

 

**

In here, he’s experiencing routines more than he ever has before. Back at home, he usually woke up at an irregular hour (if he didn’t work), to have breakfast or lunch depending on his mood, played some videogames and then went back to sleep. Repeat. If he’s in the mood. 

Here in prison, on the other hand, are the prisoners working in routine. Like robots; checking every dot on the list, wavers away to not get punished if they haven’t, repeatedly, every single day. Wake up, exercise and/or shower, breakfast, work, lunch, calls, engaging hour, sleep. 

It works for him though, so he isn’t complaining. It’s just very unusual for him to live like this. 

 

He’s on the phone with Maggie, the farmer girl he’s been sneaking away with during nighttime, way too often. A girl he has too much self-awareness to not call sister but enough respect to not claim her to be his. Talking to her, diving into her southern accent and kind words, makes him realize just how much he misses home. Even if the life in here is livingly better for him, he still feels a knot in his throat, unable to swallow it down, thinking about his life before. As if he’s been in here for years or never seeing the light from the sun in decades. 

“You better get to know your cellmates before it’s too late, so that you have at least a couple of friends in there,” Maggie says. “Well, except for that Dixon guy who seems like a total douche.” Glenn can hear her grimace on the other side of the line and laughs briefly. 

“He was just mad that I stole his brother’s bed.”

“It’s your bed now.”

“Yeah, but-“

“And he tried to swing one at ya,” Maggie interrupts. 

“I know, but-,” Glenn tries, frustrated enough to want to fight her in this but smart enough to know he’s betting on a losing horse. 

“Stop defending him, Glenn.”

“I’m not, I’m just saying-“

“He’s gonna have to adjust.” Maggie is deadly serious, it’s almost cute but Glenn has learnt the hard way to fear her seriousness. Or else you get hit in the back of your head if you laugh. She’s got a great smack but he won’t strain his luck to see it again. 

“I don’t think that’s how prison works,” he smiles silently into the phone; not letting her hear it. “I’m not worth piss to the others until I’ve been here at least a year.”

“Is that a prison rule?”

“No, I don’t know. Maybe?” 

“You should learn some before you get in trouble.”

“Oh, I think it’s already too late to work on strategies for surviving prison,” Glenn says without thinking. He hears her take a sudden, shallow breath. 

“What did you do?” She pauses, probably figuring that Glenn usually isn’t the person who dives into trouble. He’s more of a dodger. “Is it about Dixon?” 

“According to my other cellmates, I said the wrong things and Dixon isn’t exactly the kind of guy to wanna mess with.” 

Maggie is silent for a moment. He can basically hear the mutters rotate in her brain. 

A guard is tapping his shoulder, asking him to get off the phone. Glenn holds up five fingers with pleading eyes, using his super effective puppy-eyes, begging the elder to give him five more minutes. The guard sighs irritably but let him talk to Maggie a little bit longer. 

At last, Maggie talks up to him, sparing them some extra time. “What are you gonna do?”

“Mentally preparing myself for perhaps getting a whole prison gang after my Korean ass. Or worse, wake up with human shit on my face.”

“Oh God,” Maggie whispers, both of them grimacing in disgust from the bare thought of it and mentally suffers together. 

“Yeah.”

“Your five minutes are up, kid,” the guard bugs him with. “Get off the phone now, or I’ll drag you.” 

Glenn nods while swearing loudly in his head. Whishing he could talk to Maggie longer, wishing he was out, so they could drink disgusting booze on their meadow, underneath the glistering stars. Telling each other secrets that are irrelevant but which they will carry to their graves, no matter what. Because they’re friends. And he misses her, even if he’s only been in prison a day.

“Maggie, I have to go, time is up. But I’ll call you some time tomorrow, okay?” 

“Oh, okay. Yeah, please do that. Love you, Glenn, and for the love of God; take care of yourself.”

“Love you too, Mags.” And then he hangs up, receiving a small gaze from the guard, Rick Grimes, and walks off. 

 

He finds his two cellmates, Dale and T-Dog, in the common room, playing chess. They grunts small words at each other but are otherwise quiet in a room surrounded with tired inmates and profanities hollering in the air. Until T-Dog spots him and starts waving and calling for him to sit down with them. 

“How’s it going?” Glenn asks when he pulls the chair closer to the table. He looks around the room, not fully paying attention to the game of chess; nods at some of the inmates he’s crossed paths with in the corridors. Dixon is there. He’s at a table with two other people, who’s loudly chanting at each other with broad southern accents. Dixon, on the other hand, is quietly watching Glenn with an intense gaze, instead of paying attention to his friends. Glenn has to look away, not wanting to challenge the man much further than he already has. 

“Old man’s winning by cheating,” T-Dog growls, frowning deeply. 

“Ain’t cheating when you’re a professional,” Dale says, scoring another point. 

“Seriously?” T-Dog moans, sounding frustrated and when Dale wins, he groans loudly and rubs his eyes with his fingers. Ignoring Dale’s victory dance, he turns to Glenn and asks: “What you in for then, kid?” 

Glenn is silent for a moment, thinking about what to tell and what not to. Is he gonna be honest or lie? Extend it to its furthest point or just pick a small white lie and go on with it? 

“Stealing,” he says, shrugging. “Stuff and- money, not a big deal.” It wasn’t a lie, he just weren’t telling the whole truth. Because it was a big deal. A huge one. 

“How long?” Dale wants to know. 

“Two years,” he answers truthfully and receives worrying and curious glances from both. 

“For stealing ‘some stuff’?” T-Dog whistles. Glenn can tell that he knows that it’s a small lie, but isn’t commenting on it. Maybe because he knows there’s no point. 

So Glenn only shrugs again and looks away, not meeting their glances for a while. A known sensation is burning in the corner of his eyes, he tries to fight it but it’s hard. The memory of the people in front him, with confused and frightened faces as he screamed at them, ordering them around to fill his bags. He remembers the ringing in his ear after someone shot in the air right beside him. And also the soothing blood, because it wasn’t in the air, it was a warning shot in someone’s body. A killing shot, to show them they meant business not play. He remembers court; remember being shocked and remember crying because of the aching pain he felt. But fair is fair, he suppose. He committed a crime, didn’t even try to deny his actions in front of the judge. Who was seemingly kind to him, considering, and only gave him two years because the surveillance cameras had shown that he had nothing to do with the unnecessary murder. 

“Sorry dude,” T-Dog tries to comfort him gently, putting his hand on Glenn’s shoulder and squeezes. “We’ve all made mistakes, that’s why we’re here.” 

Glenn nods slowly, blinking the burning tears away and looks at them again. A faint feeling of guilt is hitting him in his chest and he feels so stupid. The two men beside him probably has gotten longer sentence and he’s sitting here feeling sorry for himself over two years. 

“I sold and did drugs,” T-Dog says. “Class A. Got myself seven years, served two.” 

“I’m sorry,” Glenn mumbles and beats himself up on the inside for being inconsiderate and pathetic. And most of all for showing it. In prison. 

“Nah,” T-Dog laughs. “Don’t worry about it. My own fault, not yours.” 

Glenn nods, processes what T-Dog had told him. 

“What about you?” He turns his head slightly to Dale, looking the man directly in his wrinkled eyes. 

“Murder,” he tells and then laughs with his whole body when he sees the expression Glenn can’t help to make. “In self-defense. The judges didn’t see it that way though.” 

“What happened?”

“I was out with my nieces, Amy and Andrea, when a robber tried to steal their stuff. I hunt him down but he pulled a gun at my face. He would’a killed me and the girls if I hadn’t shot him first.” A small smile crawls up on Dale’s lips but his eyes are sad and lifeless. “Twenty years. Been here five.” He pauses for a while and shakes his head, visibly sad now. “I’ll probably die in here.” 

“Don’t say that,” Glenn whispers and can’t help but suffer with the man, wants to take his pain but is unable to. Feeling worthless underneath his skin. 

“It’s okay, Glenn, don’t worry about me. The best I can do is making it count. You should drop by some day.”

“Where?” He’s confused. 

“His bloody yoga group,” T-Dog says, sighing loudly. ‘Make it count’, they call it. Might as well have called it ‘Carpe Diem’ or some other cultural bullshit.”

“Theodore cracked his neck and was in pain for days, that’s why he’s grumpy,” Dale explains. 

“Shit’s dangerous, I’m telling you. Sadistic shits if you’re gonna make it count. I don’t wanna know what kind of kinky ass bullshit you and Hershel’s doin’.” 

“Well, it involves a lot of ass, you’re right about that, and-“

“Done! I’m out,” T-Dog yells and stomps wildly away, making a dramatic scene in the common room. Dale laughs at him and wipes his eyes with his shirt, Glenn smiles widely until he meets eyes with Dixon again. A hot feeling in his gut makes an entrance and he swears he can feel his cheeks burning. Before looking away, he can see the smug grin Dixon wears on his face. 

 

He’s outside in the training area with T-Dog and Juan Morales, the day after. The night had gone well, no bickering between him and the redneck. It’s early in the morning but the sun is warming their prison-damp bodies. T-Dog and Juan are doing their routine workout but Glenn, who is new to this whole idea of training, is checking everything out first. The air tastes like salty sweat and testosterone as he walks through the big group of men. They’re grunting and moaning while pushing the weights to its limits, muscles straining in them. 

He sits down at a barbell and is just about to start when a dangerously low voice interrupts: 

“That’s mine.” 

Glenn looks up and meets eyes with Dixon and he can’t help but sigh, even if his nerves are telling him not to. 

“Excuse me?”

“Every day, I do this one. Find another one.”

“There’s no other one,” Glenn complains, getting really tired of Dixon’s shit. 

“Ain’t my problem, Chinaman,” Dixon answers with a growl and steps closer. “Get away.” 

Glenn stares up at the older man with his sleeves ripped off, muffled hair and superior grin on his face. Glenn hates it. He’s tired, therefor not in the mood for getting harassed, so he stands up and walks away without spitting another word in Dixon’s face, anger boiling inside of him. Slightly afraid he’s gonna burst, he almost sprints back to T-Dog and Juan. Behind him, he hears Dixon shout at him: “Sleep with one eye open tonight, Rhee.” 

It’s a threat that’s supposed to scare the living hell out of him, but the fact that Dixon cared to remember his last name, leaves a cocky grin on his lips; as it did on Dixon, with a feeling that he won that round. 

“You should be careful,” T-Dog warns. Juan nods in agreement. “Boy gets creative when he’s pissed. You’re right in his danger zone.” 

Glenn shrugs. “He can’t do anything to me here, anyway. Not with the guards around.” But he knows what they mean. It’s hard to hide behind Walsh at nights, behind closed doors, with a redneck maniac in the same cell. 

 

It’s close to midnight, second night, when he wakes up with the feeling of something gnawing his toes. He opens his sleepy eyes and looks down. At the end of the bed, lays a huge, furry animal which tries to get underneath his blanket. With a gasp of realization, he kicks the beast; trying to get it off of him. It hisses at him and bites his big toe. Glenn lets out a muffled scream that wakes Horvath and T-Dog. 

“The hell’s the matter?” T-Dog groans. “What you screaming at?”

Glenn’s eyes are finally getting used to the murky darkness, and face the filthiest animal he’s ever seen. It stares at him with big, black eyes; baring its teeth. 

“A possum- it’s a- I can’t fucking believe this… There’s a possum in my bed!” he shouts, kicking it again but gets bitten for the second time. “It’s biting me. Who the hell-“ He’s quiet for a while, seeing red in the dark. “For fuck sake, Dixon!” He can swear that he hears the redneck choke back a laugh but mostly he’s quiet. 

With a final kick, the possum hits the floor, growling angrily and hides underneath Dale’s bed. 

Glenn sighs, not even bothering to ask how the hell Dixon was able to catch a possum and put it in Glenn’s bed, and pulls the cover aside to inspect the bite wounds. They’re not horribly deep but his feet are still speckled with dried blood. And something else. Something crusty and sticky. He reaches down as the smell hits him. With a loud grunt, he crashes into the pillow and buries his face in it. He wishes it could just disappear, in thin air. 

“You good, kid?” he hears Dale whisper in the background.

“Peanut butter,” Glenn answers, receiving only awkward silence from his cellmates. A couple of minutes later, Glenn fall asleep with embarrassment and anger in his chest; dreaming about Dixon choking on his feet.


End file.
